Why

I've been thinking.  A lot of the people around me (though not as much when I was an undergrad in a different state) don't see a problem with racist jokes and racist portrayals in books, films, video games, and comics.  I've heard people I believe try to live lives of integrity argue that racist jokes help mock the teller's own racism and keep it in check.  I've been told I take things too seriously.  I've been told many things.

Now, to be completely honest, I do take things too seriously.  Especially myself.  I have a very limited sense of humor, and often attempt to impose that limitation on others.

But I think there is something wrong with racist jokes and portrayals.  I am one quarter Chinese, one quarter Japanese, one quarter German, and one quarter Czech.  I often tell people I am German because I don't like being identified as Asian, and I'm not entirely sure why I do that.  I know it really bothers me when I'm known as "the Asian one," and that one of the first things many people ask me is "what are you."  I'm me.  Ian Miller.  I'm not ashamed of being Asian.  I love eating rice.  I am a huge nerd.  These things are part of who I am, and if they're related to being Asian, I don't disavow them.

But to single a trait that I have no control over, and identify me primarily as that trait seems extremely devaluing.  I know most people who do it probably have no intention of doing so, but I don't think it's the right thing to do.

Even further than that, something that's just occurred to me (and prompted this post), when a racist joke or stereotype is promulgated, even if it's supposedly done in a way that's self-mocking, that idea, that devaluation and denigration are strengthened in everyone who hears or sees the joke or portrayal.  And when I see or hear the joke or portrayal, part of me is thinking, "That's what these people think about me."  Not because of anything I do (and believe me, I do many things to make people think badly of me), but because of where my grandparents were from and what I look like.

It's a sick feeling.  And I wish it could go away.

(Wow, this is starting to feel whiny.  Okay, I'm done.)

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